Gardening Tips: Getting Started on Your Summer Vegetable Garden

Now that our last frost has finally come and gone, we can think about summer vegetables. Tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, beans, melons, and squash thrive in hot, sunny weather. Don’t rush the season! Until nights stay about 50 degrees F. hot weather plants will fail to thrive. Secrets to a successful summer vegetable garden include:

Getting Started on Your Summer Vegetable Garden

1. Pick disease resistant varieties. In tomatoes, for example, all the letters after the varietal name represent plant diseases this variety can withstand. In short, look for lots of letters after the name. It’s impossible to overemphasize the importance of disease resistance in our climate.
2. Harden off your transplants. This means exposing the plants gradually to the sun and wind so that they can adjust to the change from greenhouse conditions. Sometimes this has been done by the time you buy them. Other times you will have to do it yourself. Set the plants out on a sunny place in a somewhat protected environment, such as a porch, for a few days, before setting them out in the garden. Pay attention to the appearance of the plants. Dramatic wilting or browning of leaves means you’re going too fast. After a few days, you may set them out in their permanent positions. If you start seeds in place (beans, melons and cucumbers do best direct seeded) you don’t have to worry about hardening off because the plants won’t be experiencing this dramatic change in growing habitat.
3. Don’t space too closely. It’s so easy to underestimate the spacial needs of an adult plant while regarding it in its infancy, but don’t fudge. Follow the directions on the packet or transplanting tag. Overcrowding encourages insects and disease.
4. Provide consistent moisture and fertility. Plants are creatures of habit like the rest of us and find fluctuating conditions very stressful. My favorite technique is to mix composted manure or slow release fertilizer with the soil and water with drip or seep irrigators. Containers can be bottom watered by setting them in saucers that stay full of water. You may still need to side dress with additional fertilizer later in the season. A quick word here about mulch. It’s a great technique for controlling weeds and moisture loss, but wait until the plants are a good size before spreading it. Small plants surrounded by heavy mulch tend to rot at the base. Plastic mulch is not the best choice in our climate as it heats up our already warm soil excessively.
5. Be vigilant. Keep a constant eye out for early signs of bugs, weeds, etc. Check the underside of leaves where most insects lay their eggs. I hand pick both bugs and weeds which is a manageable task only if you stay on top of it daily. Even if you elect to spray, early intervention makes every problem more controllable and saves your garden from setbacks to productivity. Often, insects carry the diseases that can eventually kill summer vegetables. If you do elect to spray, check out the new bioneem spray from Safer products. Neem is an Indian tree with a ten thousand year history of use in insect control and may be a boon to those of us who worry about chemical residue from traditional pesticides.
6. Spend a little effort on design features and interplant some flowers to make your vegetable garden esthetically pleasing. For most of us, gardening is an option, not a necessity, so we should make it an enjoyable experience to be there. If it’s beautiful, we’re more likely to spend the time and effort there to maintain it well and harvest more. Next time I’ll talk about recommended varieties of favorite summer vegetables.Now that our last frost has finally come and gone, we can think about summer vegetables. Tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, beans, melons, and squash thrive in hot, sunny weather. Don’t rush the season! Until nights stay about 50 degrees F. hot weather plants will fail to thrive. Secrets to a successful summer vegetable garden include:
   1. Pick disease resistant varieties. In tomatoes, for example, all the letters after the varietal name represent plant diseases this variety can withstand. In short, look for lots of letters after the name. It’s impossible to overemphasize the importance of disease resistance in our climate.
   2. Harden off your transplants. This means exposing the plants gradually to the sun and wind so that they can adjust to the change from greenhouse conditions. Sometimes this has been done by the time you buy them. Other times you will have to do it yourself. Set the plants out on a sunny place in a somewhat protected environment, such as a porch, for a few days, before setting them out in the garden. Pay attention to the appearance of the plants. Dramatic wilting or browning of leaves means you’re going too fast. After a few days, you may set them out in their permanent positions. If you start seeds in place (beans, melons and cucumbers do best direct seeded) you don’t have to worry about hardening off because the plants won’t be experiencing this dramatic change in growing habitat.
   3. Don’t space too closely. It’s so easy to underestimate the spacial needs of an adult plant while regarding it in its infancy, but don’t fudge. Follow the directions on the packet or transplanting tag. Overcrowding encourages insects and disease.
   4. Provide consistent moisture and fertility. Plants are creatures of habit like the rest of us and find fluctuating conditions very stressful. My favorite technique is to mix composted manure or slow release fertilizer with the soil and water with drip or seep irrigators. Containers can be bottom watered by setting them in saucers that stay full of water. You may still need to side dress with additional fertilizer later in the season. A quick word here about mulch. It’s a great technique for controlling weeds and moisture loss, but wait until the plants are a good size before spreading it. Small plants surrounded by heavy mulch tend to rot at the base. Plastic mulch is not the best choice in our climate as it heats up our already warm soil excessively.
   5. Be vigilant. Keep a constant eye out for early signs of bugs, weeds, etc. Check the underside of leaves where most insects lay their eggs. I hand pick both bugs and weeds which is a manageable task only if you stay on top of it daily. Even if you elect to spray, early intervention makes every problem more controllable and saves your garden from setbacks to productivity. Often, insects carry the diseases that can eventually kill summer vegetables. If you do elect to spray, check out the new bioneem spray from Safer products. Neem is an Indian tree with a ten thousand year history of use in insect control and may be a boon to those of us who worry about chemical residue from traditional pesticides.
   6. Spend a little effort on design features and interplant some flowers to make your vegetable garden esthetically pleasing. For most of us, gardening is an option, not a necessity, so we should make it an enjoyable experience to be there. If it’s beautiful, we’re more likely to spend the time and effort there to maintain it well and harvest more. Next time I’ll talk about recommended varieties of favorite summer vegetables.